


John Remembers

by Xanateria



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Past Lives, Pining, Reincarnation, metaphysical elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-07 18:24:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5466590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xanateria/pseuds/Xanateria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"John remembers.</p><p>At first, he thinks everyone does. He's not so remarkable anyway, so it must be a common enough thing. It’s his Nan – his mother’s mother - who tells him that that his memories aren’t like everyone else’s. She won’t talk about it. She tells him to let things be. When no one believes what he remembers, or lets him talk about it, he tries his best to ignore it."</p><p>A story that gives us one possible explanation for why John and Sherlock are so close. This is by far not their first lifetime together. Nor will it be their last. And still, John knows it won’t be enough. It will never be enough.</p>
            </blockquote>





	John Remembers

**Author's Note:**

> Another story that grabbed me by the throat and wouldn't leave me alone until I wrote it. Proof that I can actually write shorter pieces - even if I don't do it very often.
> 
> I have too many pieces going right now for my own good. I swore I wouldn't start any new ones until I finished the WIPs. Turns out I lied. Thanks to Elfflame for the beta and encouragement. She did a fantastic job. Any mistakes are solely the fault of my tendency to add snippets after a work has been betad.

 

_Memory is like nothing else. No matter how faint or fleeting the glimpse, they are pieces of life, a remarkable weight we all willingly choose to carry even though they are just as likely to hold pain as they are joy._

 

John remembers.

At first, he thinks everyone does it the way he can. He's not so remarkable anyway, so it must be a common enough thing. It’s his Nan – his mother’s mother - who tells him that that his memories aren’t like everyone else’s. She won’t talk about it. She tells him to let things be. No one else believes what he remembers, or lets him talk about it, so he tries his best to ignore it.

His parents are fighting again. They dump him at Nan's. Harry goes to Aunt Agatha's so he knows it could be worse. Aunt Agatha doesn’t own a television, long ago forbade them from her library and has hysterics if she hears John or his sister do much of anything above a whisper.

He wishes he were clever enough to figure out how to be enough to interest his parents. But in all the important ways, things are better at Nan’s than they are at home.

After supper on a very rainy Friday, Nan supervises his bath and promises him a brand new story once he's in clean pajamas in her guest bed. Her stories are the best so he grins and races to the spare bedroom where he sleeps. But when he's tucked under the duvet, the smell of lemon and lavender on the sheets brings a memory with it.

John remembers.

It's Nan, but she's not the same. Her hair is fiery red, not the brown he's seen in pictures from when she was young. She's holding a little boy, and it's him. Somehow it's him, but he’s skinnier and his hair is the same flash of coppery red as hers and his ears are bigger.

She tells him to be strong. Another person - he can't see who - pulls him away.

She starts to cry so he fights to stay with her, biting and scratching. But she makes him stop, with what she says. “You have to go. You have to let them keep you safe.”

He doesn’t know what the danger is, or where he’s going, only that he feels like his heart is breaking as he limps out the door.

He doesn’t know where the certainty comes from, but he knows he will not see her again.

He comes out of the memory in a rush, staring at Nan. He knows he's pale and his eyes feel too big in his face.

"I think you were my mum," he tells her, his voice small and quiet because it takes effort not to cry. The memory is still so close and he’s still feeling all the sadness, all the anger and the terrible, ripping grief.

He expects denial or a brush off. He's already learned that's what adults do to things they don't understand.

Instead, Nan’s eyes well up with tears and she nods once. "Yes. Yes I was, then." And she pulls him to her, hugs him tight and explains that since he still has a very good memory for who people were, it’s not likely he’ll outgrow it now. And he must try not to be afraid of what that means he knows about them.

She's calm, even brisk as she talks, but her eyes are so dark and sad, he wishes he could take it back.

"I'm sorry," he apologizes.

She shakes her head and finds her no-nonsense tone.

"Don't apologize for who you are. I wouldn't change you. It's just an awfully heavy burden to carry, all those memories. It makes an old woman worry too much,” she tells him. And then she kisses his cheek and tells him a new story like she promised.

They’re closer after that, him and Nan. Harry complains that Nan is playing favourites. 

He ignores her. Harry gets too much pleasure out of teasing him. They’ve never gotten along.

His mother complains he likes Nan better than her. She waits for him to argue.

He doesn’t.

Mother doesn’t really see him, can’t really care about him, because she’s too tangled up in her own things. She’s always been like that, no matter who she was to him.

***

It’s Nan he goes to, when what he remembers feels nearly unbearable – when the snippets get longer, and darker and he can’t make them stop, even when he tries his hardest.

He remembers being nearly a teenager and his father – a big, burly man who makes his living as a sailor – is beating him, again. His name is Andrew this time, he knows it because his father screams it, along with a list of excuses why he deserves what he gets.

He curls on himself to protect his stomach and lifts his arms to protect his head.

The next day an older boy accosts him in the park, crowding close and grabbing him by the shoulder though somehow carefully avoiding the deep, purple bruises painted on his skin.

He doesn’t know the boy, has only seen him around but he lets him propel them both over to a more private clump of trees.

The boy looks at him for a long moment and then says "your father beat you so badly you can barely move and yet you still come to the park. It makes no sense.”

He doesn't stop to consider that he doesn't even know the tall, pale boy who looks as if he hasn’t had a good meal in days. He trusts him; Anyway there’s no reason to lie.

“I take my bits of freedom where I can find them,” John admits.

The other boy considers this. And then he says "I could arrange for his...untimely demise. All the adults would see is a terrible accident." He could be talking about the weather, or his plans for lunch, his tone is so calm. John looks into his eyes and knows the other boy is completely serious, without knowing where the certainty comes from.

It's not worth the risk, for either of them. But John appreciates the offer, and it makes him feel warm that someone cares at least a little what happens to him.

He comes out of the memory aching from the phantom pains of a left over beating. But he pushes that aside in favour of curiosity. He wonders who the boy was, and how many times they’ve known each other.

Nan tells him not to let his curiosity pull him into too many memories too soon.

Reluctantly, he promises not to try and go looking in the memories for any particular person. He doesn’t add the at least not yet out loud. He thinks she probably hears it anyway.

***

 

It gets harder to keep that promise as he gets older. He’s drawn to the boy, whoever and whenever he is. It’s like the other boy sees everything but the vast majority of it bores him because he knows so much more about it all.

Whoever he is, they’re always somewhere around the same age, give or take a handful of years. If they’re together in the memory, chances are good there will be chaos, violence and confusion soon after.

John decides he rather likes it that way.

As he gets older, the memories get longer, more intense. Some of them are difficult to bring himself out of. Others suck him in when he can’t afford to be distracted – like during the last of his A levels, when he’s thrown into a different auditorium entirely.

It looks like it was a school gym, before it was taken over by a rough, make-shift hospital. Pallets line the floor in rows.

The men and women on them are a mix of soldiers and civilians. All of the soldiers look so terribly young. He has no room to talk. He’s not yet eighteen. The lie was easy to get away with. His pallet is uncomfortable and his uniform is torn and dirty. He knows his wounds aren’t life threatening but the pain comes in waves that steal his breath and lock his muscles as he struggles not to scream.

And that doesn’t matter. Because he doesn’t know where his best friend is, or if he’s even alive. Wil is luckier than he is, maybe he didn’t get hurt. But if he didn’t get hurt, then where the hell is he? They don’t leave each other behind. The promise was made the first day of the hell that was basic training. Somehow, usually through Wil’s astonishingly quick thinking, they’ve kept it, until today.

He comes out of that memory with his whole body tense, and he’s shaking and pale, so much so that the proctor ask him if he needs to defer his exam and go see the nurse.

John gets a hold of himself, as best he can and declines. But he has to force himself to think about the exam questions and ignore the lingering scent of blood he knows is only there for him.

By the time he’s in medical school, he’s figured a few things out. For one thing, it turns out life really is about learning your lessons: who and what are important, who to hang on to, how to let them in and really connect, that sort of thing. If you don’t learn, then it tends to come back to bite you in the arse on your next go.

For another, the memories almost always feature him close to his actual age, unless he’s revisiting past ones, which only works some of the time. If he’s been taking proper care of himself – eating, sleeping that sort of thing – he can sometimes push them away. They’ll come back, but at least he can usually make them wait until he’s by himself.

Of course, med students aren’t exactly known for self-care, so he’s not always so lucky. But he learns to hide the signs he’s not where or when he should be.

He practices, ruthlessly shoving memories away, even the strongest of them. He gets blinding headaches and it saps so much of his energy he feels like he should collapse by the time he feels like he has at least some control. But he does it anyway, stubbornly determined that this strange ability of his won’t run his life.

The same people do tend to pop up. Nan has been almost everything to him – mother, sister, brother, even wife at one point and that’s one memory that’s just too weird to share. His father, his mother, even Harry. More often than not, if it’s his family, they’re at each other’s throats, unless it’s Nan. That relationship stays steady and solid, no matter what.

And then there’s the boy he promised he wouldn’t look for. He’s not so young anymore, having aged right along with John in the memories. All the names get confusing after a while, but that’s not how John knows him. It’s the feel of him, the bone deep certainty that whatever life he's living, it won’t be complete until they’re together.

And they’re not. Whoever he is this time, John hasn’t found him. Maybe that’s why he can’t shove memories of him aside like the others. Because deep down in the most secret parts of him, he doesn’t want to. He needs him, like he needs the air he breathes or the knowledge his mind craves. Not having met him yet is a bit like what he imagines phantom limb pain must be like.

He tells himself it’s crazy, that he can’t keep himself up at nights because he aches for a man – well at least he thinks he’ll be a man this time – that he’s never even met in this life. It’s why he dates, and enjoys himself while he’s at it. He confines his love life to the fairer sex though, and tries to ignore the fact that part of him feels like it would be disloyal to get that close to a man who isn’t _him_.

The night before the first day of his residency, he’s restless, too warm despite the chill in the air of his room. He flops on his back to stare at his ceiling and throws back his blankets and his mind throws him into a memory before he has a chance to take his next breath.

It’s late and there is only a sliver of moon, so the darkness feels like it could be hiding more than usual. The room is small and bland, a generic box that could be anywhere. John is coming through the door, and he’s so angry it seems like he’s shouting, though in fact he’s very carefully not.

“It’s bad enough that I traipse halfway across the country to help you. The least you could do is try not to throw your life away through sheer carelessness before I can meet you,” he says to the tall, lean man who follows and closes the door behind them.

And he knows before the other man turns that it’s him.

“Are you even listening to me?” he demands, the anger still running hot through his body, doing its best to mask the bone deep fear from earlier.

He knows, in a dizzying rush that this time, the other man – the other half of himself - very nearly got shot that night, and only survived because he’d arrived in the very nick of time and killed the man who meant to murder him without hesitation.

It feels like it should bother John that he’s a killer, but it doesn’t. The other man doesn’t merit a second thought, never mind guilt.

The memories do that sometimes, soak him in information while he’s still caught in the current happenings but he’s getting used to it, he thinks.

And then the other man – Scott this time – he’s almost sure - turns to him and holds up a hand to stop the flow of words. “Stop talking. It doesn’t matter. You can be angry later. Right now…” he trails off and runs his left hand from John’s shoulder to the centre of his chest.

Even through the layers of clothing, John feels his skin heat in the wake of that touch.

“Right now,” Scott continues, “you were absolutely magnificent and the only thing I want you to be using your mouth for is kissing me until I cannot think of anything but how much I need you, how impossibly much I want you.”

And then neither of them is talking. He’s still angry but Scott is right. It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters except getting each other out of their clothes as fast as they can. They rip and tear at each other, clumsy with their urgency, and then they’re finally naked, John can feel each place they touch light up like the nerves are nearly overloading. And they haven’t even done anything yet.

When they kiss, everything fades away. The world, the fact that he knows this is a memory, everything. This is all there is, and it’s so good, there’s no room for anything else. He forgets to care about the noises he can’t seem to stop making, forgets any kind of finesse he should have. He just needs to touch as much as he can, take as much as he can. He’s not a selfish lover, not usually, anyway but he wants – oh god, he wants. There’s no room left for anything but heat and warm skin and more kisses, each deeper and longer than the last.

They tumble to the bed, and it’s hard and too narrow but they make it work. John ends up on top, draped over the lean body beneath him. And he wants to make it last, luxuriate in the feel of him, the smell of him, the sight of him, eyes bright, legs spread, hips slowly rolling so they rub together in an absolutely delicious way.

“I’m sorry I was careless,” Scott says, his voice low and quite deliberately wicked. “Let me make it up to you.”

He says this as he rolls his hips again, harder this time and John grinds down and ignores the fact he can feel himself getting harder with each passing second.

“And how might you do that?” he asks, not bothering to hide the anger that still simmers underneath his desire.

Instead of answering, Scott reaches under the pillow behind his head and withdraws a small bottle of oil. He pushes John back, just enough to bring his legs up, slicks his fingers with the oil and reaches down to start working himself open, never taking his eyes off John.

“I’ll give you one guess,” he says, and might have kept talking but John leans down and kisses him, uncaring that it’s messy. He pulls back so he can watch again, mesmerized by the sight of those long fingers disappearing into the tight hole.

They’re both panting by the time Scott’s worked himself open on three fingers. He should have looked awkward, contorting that way, but even in that, he manages a grace John knows he could never have.

He reaches down and moves Scott’s hand out of his way.

He doesn’t ask, doesn’t say anything, just bites back a low moan and pushes in. Once he starts, he can’t stop until he’s in as far as he can go, even though he knows he should have eased in.

And then Scott thrusts up and what little control John has left snaps. He starts a punishing rhythm, deep and fast, his hands gripping the other man’s shoulders so hard he knows there will be bruises later. Part of him likes that a little too much.

When he comes, it’s so good it hurts, just a little bit. His muscles ache, he can’t stop shaking. He leans down so they can kiss, but he deliberately uses just a touch too much pressure. It’s not his anger, and yet it is. How the hell could Scott be so fucking careless with his life?

And just like that he’s back on his bed, still too warm, but now spent and shaking. Even the echoes of the pleasure feel good, but it’s hollow. Like the universe is trying to show him exactly what he could have, but he doesn’t.

Whoever that man is in this time, he isn’t here and now.

And John thinks of all the different memories of him, and how many of them don’t exactly end happily and feels himself start to shake.

He’s always told himself he just hasn’t found him this time, that they’ll be together just like always – eventually. But what if the great bloody idiot can’t be found because he took some stupid chance and got himself killed? It’s possible, John knows it is – though even acknowledging it makes his stomach hurt and his breath come too fast.

After that, he actively tries not to think about it.

He and Harry have a spectacular fight the day he tells her he plans to enlist. But he needs to do something that makes him feel like he’s alive, not simply existing in limbo waiting. And if there’s a tiny part of him that thinks maybe this will increase his chances of finding _him_ – well that’s not anyone’s business and it doesn’t matter because it’s by far not the only reason he’s doing this.

Afghanistan is nothing like what he expects it to be. He supposes he should have expected he’d love it so much – it’s much like his favourite memories - long stretches of tedium broken up by chaos, violence and confusion.

The day he’s shot, he’s not thinking about himself. He’s thinking about saving his fellow soldier, who looks like he’s only hanging on to life by the very thinnest of threads. There’s nothing for it, he has to make a run through a short space with very little cover to where the rest of the supplies are.

They make it, though his pulse is galloping and he’s sure they won’t. Luck is so rarely on his side. But just as he sets Maclyn down in the shelter of the rocks that were his target, he’s hit. He feels the impact in his shoulder, has just enough time to curse. And then he’s falling to the sand, feeling his life flow out of him just as the blood does.

As his vision goes dark, he speaks to God for the first time in longer than he can remember.

“Please. Please. Please. Not yet. Please not yet. I haven’t found him yet.” The words are a quiet murmur but even he can hear the desperation in his tone. He doesn’t fear death, not really. He knows better than most it’s not the end. But he fears leaving this life unfinished, leaving without meeting him, getting his chance to not feel like the most vital piece of him is missing.

When he’s thrown into the memory, he leaves the pain, the smell of his own blood and the aching fear behind…but only for an instant.

The memory he snaps into is far from pleasant. He’s lying on cold, wet concrete with a cavernous empty warehouse rising up around him. He recognizes the signs, he’s been beaten, rather severely this time. Judging by the bindings on his hands and feet, he didn’t exactly come to his location willingly and whoever brought him plans to keep him. Perfect. The universe has a sense of humour. He left one hell only to exchange it for another.

But then there’s the sound of running feet and a clamor of metal falling and glass breaking. More running and then the feet move into his field of vision just before a man drops to his knees beside him. And it’s him, of course it’s him. With the warm hand on his cheek comes a name, Ben this time.

“Don’t you know anything? I’m the one who goes charging off alone, not you.” Ben says, his normally calm tone choked with worry.

John looks up at him, drinks in the details. The hair is a glossy chestnut brown, his eyes are green but the look in them, the knowing, it’s the same and he smiles.

“You came.” And he doesn’t know if he means in the memory or in the original timeline but it doesn’t matter. He can’t quite remember why, but nothing matters now, except that they are together.

“I’ll always come. I told you that. And I’ll always find you no matter who tries to keep us apart. I’m hardly going to start lying to you know.”

And John smiles, because that’s truer than the other man can possibly know.

He’s more surprised than anyone when he wakes up in the field hospital. Wisps of the most recent memory cling stubbornly to his mind and he looks around reflexively but none of the faces bring any spark of recognition.

Then the doctors come and he has other things to worry about.

***

Three days after he arrives back in London he gets word that Nan is gone. Massive stroke, nothing anyone could do. He’s glad she didn’t suffer but even knowing he’ll see her again eventually doesn’t dull the ache of loss, or make him feel less alone.

He tells himself he’s not lonely but he knows it’s a lie. He only goes to therapy because part of him wants the human contact.

He quits after only three sessions. There’s no point. She can’t help him.

Two weeks after his last session, John’s taking his gun out of its drawer to clean it when it occurs to him that there’s absolute nothing keeping him here in this colourless little life in this equally colourless little box of a flat.

For a moment, he lets himself consider it, just letting go and moving on. It feels like it would be a relief.

But he can’t, even as a part of him longs to do it anyway, he knows he can’t. There’s just the smallest, slightest chance that the man from his memories is still out there. If he is, then someone needs to save him from his own dangerously reckless impulses.

That night, after a meal of absolutely terrible take out, he wraps himself in his blankets and listens to rain lash against the glass.

The sound leads him seamlessly into a memory dominated by the thunder of water rushing over an impossibly tall falls.

John doesn’t want to look. Everything in him screams that he shouldn’t. But he does, just in time to see the broken body come plummeting over it. He’s too still, and the angle of his limbs is all wrong. But even at such a distance, John knows who it is.

He’s still screaming when his eyes snap open back in the present.

It feels shameful somehow, to be crying, but he can’t stop. He doesn’t know if he’s crying because of the wrenching sense of loss in the memory or because this is just another reminder that whoever he is, his mystery man might already be dead and gone in this life too.

He supposes the answer doesn’t really matter.

The next morning he has to force himself to get out of bed. Everything seems even more dull and pointless than before. But sheer stubbornness counts for something and he can’t just laze about all day because he wants to, far too much.

When he meets up with Mike in park, John nearly makes his excuses and walks away. Normal social interaction seems like far too much work.

But then Mike comments about how John’s the second person to mention needing a flatshare and despite himself, a spark of interest jolts through him. Maybe things would improve for him if he got out of the horrible, drab place he currently calls home.

It’s a bit surreal, to be back at Barts, but John finds he rather likes it. He’s making comparisons about all the changes when he walks through the door of the lab. And then everything stops, for just an instant. The span of one heartbeat, maybe two and then John forces his brain to actually work while his heart is screaming at top volume.

It’s _him_.

All the weeks, months and years and the bloody impossible man is in a dreary, grey lab in a hospital.

John gives him his phone without hesitation, barely able to keep from telling him he can have anything he wants.

After so long, the fact they are in the same place make him so happy, he’s close to giddy. Knowing he’s alive is such a relief it’s all he can do not to fall to his knees.

He repeats the name in his head. Sherlock. This time, it’s Sherlock.

When the other man moves to leave, John clenches his fists hard enough to draw blood with his nails. He has to, to keep from running after and refusing to leave his side.

He knows this is far from their first lifetime together, and he knows this isn’t going to be the last time he has to wait. But in that instant, he feels like this wait will be an eternity.

John tells himself if he waited this long, he can wait one more day. And he tries not to think about the fact that even though they’ve found each other now, this lifetime won’t be enough. No matter how many there are, they’ll never be enough.

***

They fit together just as well as they’ve always done. John knows the instant connection between them puzzles Sherlock, but he doesn’t comment. It’s not the sort of thing Sherlock is comfortable with – or ever has been. If he can’t quantify it, he tends to be afraid of it, not that he’ll ever admit it. They’ve gone whole lifetimes without discussing it before, and John decides he’ll find a way to be fine with it if that’s the case this time.

He leaves well enough alone when Sherlock hands him the married to his work line. He knows that they don’t always end up in bed together. Their relationship is always complicated and defies labels. This time will be no different.

But privately, he doesn’t think Sherlock will stick to that line. He’s always been a very passionate person and what’s between them pulls at him just like it does at John. There’s no getting away from things – or people - that are meant to be. John’s known that for …lifetimes, really.

And whether Sherlock likes it or not, there are things that John knows, because of what he remembers. Most people don’t realize how much all their past go ‘rounds affect them. But he can’t help it. He knows Sherlock hates almonds because a past nemesis tried – and very nearly succeeded – to kill him with cyanide.

He knows Sherlock is skittish about sex these days because in a more recent lifetime, he was attacked and assaulted and never really given any help to process the trauma.

He shies away from the reason for Sherlock’s fear of heights; oh the other man hides it well enough, but it’s there.

John only wishes he didn’t know why.

Sometimes John wishes he had the balls to lay it all out for his detective, just to see what would happen, but also to see if he feels the same intensity between them, the weight of so many lifetimes together, but he doesn’t. It’s not worth taking the chance of making Sherlock uncomfortable or upset.

Until Moriarty. Everything changes when John realizes exactly who Sherlock is tangled up with. The man – at least this time – is completely evil. He’s worn many different faces, but the one constant is the complete lack of any redeeming features – things like empathy, conscience or remorse.

Jim wasn’t the one responsible for all the violence done to Sherlock over all his lifetimes, but he could definitely claim the highlights.

And Sherlock. Well, he never could resist a challenge, John knows that all too well.

He watches Sherlock get sucked into the same dance, further and further and realizes if something is going to be done, he’s going to have to be the one to do it.

But he’s learned some hard lessons from this life and all the others. The hardest was to always be ready for the worst case scenario.

This time, the worst case is losing Sherlock, and John will not allow that to happen.

Sherlock thinks he’s the only one who knows how to cultivate contacts, but he’s wrong. John has them too. And now, he finally has a good enough reason to use them. He calls in all his markers without hesitation.

If Jim Moriarty is the problem, there is a simple solution. He feels like he ought to be bothered by the idea of killing a man in cold blood outside of combat, but he’s surprisingly alright with it. He’ll wrestle with his conscience later if that changes.

He should have known it wouldn’t be that simple. He should have known he wouldn’t be able to keep something really important from Sherlock.

When he comes in from meeting his most recent informant as to Moriarty’s location, Sherlock is staring right at him.

“Do you know,” he says in a tone with an edge sharp enough to shave with, “I’ve actually defended you as not an idiot. Pity I seem to have been mistaken. I cannot imagine what would possess you to branch out on your own now, against someone so dangerous, but to go even further and attempt to hide it from me? It’s the very height of stupidity. The matter is well in hand. Why would you take such risks?”

The demand is harsh, and Sherlock is surprisingly intimidating when he really tries.

John is unmoved. It’s easy to match anger with anger of his own. “Oh so it’s alright for you to take ridiculous chances then is it, but not the rest of us?”

He sets his chin and braces for more arguing, but stops because Sherlock is just staring at him. Not just at him, but like he’s trying to see through him.

“You plan to kill him.”

It’s not a question, but John nods in answer anyway.

“Calculated, premeditated murder isn’t like you John. You would only consider it with a very good reason.”

That is a question, despite the phrasing, and John shrugs mentally. There’s no other way to explain it now and really, if he hasn’t sent Sherlock screaming by now, then he can hope something a bit more out there won’t either.

“I can’t lose you.” He stops, clears his throat and still chokes when he continues. “Not again. I really, truly think I’ll lose a piece of my soul if I have to do that again.”

Sherlock’s trying to hide what’s actually an adorably confused expression.

“You haven’t lost me.”

John absolutely refuses to let his voice shake. “No. And I’m not going to either, not this time.” And then, calmly and as rationally as possible, given the subject matter, he lays it out. He doesn’t leave anything out and he ignores his own reactions when what he’s saying makes him tremble or blush. This is too important to fuck it up with his own petty reactions.

He has to make Sherlock believe him, believe that the threat is much more real – and immediate - than he thinks it is.

When he’s run out of things to explain, he stops, his throat tight and aching. He looks over at Sherlock, seeing the same familiar determination to understand as always, not pity or worry. So that’s something.

There’s a long silence. It stretches between them while Sherlock looks up over his steepled fingers.

“Alright. I believe you.”

John can’t quite believe it. “I’m sorry. You what?”

“Really, John. Don’t be tiresome. You heard me quite well. In all the years I’ve known you, you’ve never once lied to me, intentionally or unintentionally. Granted, you’ve wanted to a few times, but that’s not the point. And you’re quite correct in all the things you know about me that you cannot possibly have deduced.”

He pauses, then pins John with a sharp gaze that’s all predator.

“However, much as I might agree with your solution, I cannot agree with your intended execution.”

The dizzying high of being believed fades into cold fear. If Sherlock really believed him, not simply believed that John believed it, he would allow the threat to be eliminated.

Sherlock’s hand slides into the pocket of his jacket and comes out with his phone. He speed dials without looking and holds the phone up to his ear before he speaks.

“I’ve changed my mind. I won’t interfere with your plans to deal with the situation.”

He hangs up before the person on the other end can speak.

John tells himself not to panic, forces himself to remember that this is Sherlock, and for all his faults, Sherlock is too smart to do anything rash in a situation like this.

Sherlock catches sight of his expression and shakes his head with a small smile.

“I simply meant I wouldn’t allow you to be the executioner. That would pose far too great a risk for you. Let Mycroft take the risks. It’s what he gets paid for. Besides, Moriarty doesn’t need to be alive to dismantle his network. In fact, his death might make that easier.”

John hears the words, but can only slump back against the door in renewed relief. He’s not stupid, he knows this particular fight isn’t over, but the immediate threat to Sherlock has been neutralized. The rest they’ll deal with - together if he has anything to say about it.

Then he feels weak in the knees for an entirely different reason, as Sherlock springs out of the chair to crowd him against the door.

“I find myself thinking about touching you at the most random times, thinking about doing a great deal more than touching you, actually,” he admits. “I’ve always wondered why I was so drawn to you, right from the first instant we met. Now I know why but instead of wanting you less, I think I actually want you more. What would you say if I asked to take me to bed right now?”

Sherlock draws out the last word, lets his tone slide well past dirty.

“Oh god, yes,” John manages to answer, before their lips meet and they’re too busy for anymore talking.

And he wants to slow down, savour the fact that they’re at this point, finally. But he can’t. He needs too much.

They manage to keep kissing as they strip out of their clothes and stumble to Sherlock’s bedroom. Somehow, John finds the coordination to flick the light on; he’s greedy, he wants to see everything.

Then they’re on the bed and Sherlock rolls them over so he’s on the bottom and plucks a bottle of lube out of the bedside table drawer.

He takes it and tries to go slow, prepare Sherlock the way he should, but the taller man is just as impatient as he is.

“Get on with it.” Still a demand, but with an edge of pleading by the end.

Right then. They’ll have to do slow and loving later. Right now, all he has left if hard and fast and frantic. His grip is too tight on Sherlock’s hips, he knows but he can’t stop. He thrusts in too fast, and then stops because it feels so close to perfect, like he’s finally come home.

And then he has to move, has to claim what’s his and that urge overrides his normal finesse.

John manages to get a hand down between them and stroke Sherlock, once, twice, then once more before the other man comes, muscles straining, unable to hold back a hoarse cry of John’s name.

The sound of his name, and the absolutely wrecked tone, the sight of Sherlock completely undone is too much. He comes even as he tries to stop it, to hold on to the moment just a little longer.

They lay there naked, a bit sweaty and completely tangled in each other in every way and John decides that just means they’ll have to do it all again as soon as possible.

Surprisingly, sex makes Sherlock sleepy; he’s already starting to drop off. They use John’s T-shirt to clean up a bit, since neither of them wants to move, then John rearranges them so Sherlock will be more comfortable.

He settles in to enjoy the novelty of watching Sherlock sleep. As the other man’s breathing evens out, he moves over, as if making sure they are as close as possible.

And John knows that this memory will be one he’ll fall into often – in this life and all the ones that will come after it.

 

***FIN***

 


End file.
